Current news commenting systems are designed based on implicitly individualistic assumptions, where discussion is the result of a series of disconnected opinions. This often results in fragmented and polarized conversations that fail to represent the spectrum of public discourse. In this work, we develop a news commenting system where users take on distributed roles to collaboratively structure the comments to encourage a connected, balanced discussion space. Through a within-subject, mixed-methods evaluation (N=38), we find that the system supported three stages of participation: understanding issues, collaboratively structuring comments, and building a discussion. With our system, users' comments displayed more balanced perspectives and a more emotionally neutral argumentation. Simultaneously, we observed reduced argument strength compared to a traditional commenting system, indicating a trade-off between inclusivity and depth. We conclude with design considerations and trade-offs for introducing distributed roles in news commenting system design.

翻译：当前的新闻评论系统基于隐含的个人主义假设设计，讨论被视为一系列孤立观点的集合。这往往导致碎片化和两极分化的对话，无法体现公共话语的多元光谱。本研究开发了一种新闻评论系统，用户通过承担分布式角色，协作构建评论结构，以促进相互关联、平衡的讨论空间。通过采用被试内混合方法评估（N=38），我们发现该系统支持三个参与阶段：理解议题、协作构建评论结构、以及建设讨论空间。使用本系统时，用户的评论展现出更平衡的视角和更情感中立的论证方式。同时，与传统评论系统相比，我们观察到论证强度有所降低，这表明包容性与讨论深度之间存在权衡关系。最后，我们提出了在新闻评论系统设计中引入分布式角色的设计考量与权衡分析。